Twas Two Days Before Christmas ....

and nothing went right.

December 23 found me hopping back and forth between Sissy who was using the sewing machine to make a fleece hat for her Daddy, and Peanut, who was using the mixer to make cookies. I have these lapses in judgement, see, that result in my daughters simultaneously using two different powerful electric machines semi-independently.

Fortunately, no injuries occurred. However, while I was helping Sissy, Peanut inadvertently quadrupled the salt that went into the cookies, as I found out when I helped myself to a big bite of dough (oh come on, you do it too). Then when Sissy finished the hat, we found that it was too small for HER, let alone her Daddy.

So we were batting 0 for 2 when my father came by and offered to take the girls to the mall with him. They were just going to pick up a box for my mother's gift, he said. I should have known better.

They were gone two hours and when they returned my father told me something was wrong with Sissy.

"She says she feels like she's going to throw up", he said.
"I think she needs to see a doctor", he said.
"She needs some bloodwork done", he said.

She really did look terrible -- weak-eyed, pasty complexion. She had recently had a stomach virus but I thought she was over it. I was starting to worry.

Then I asked them about their trip to the mall.

It seems they started out with a giant soft pretzel and a strawberry Dutch ice. Then they went straight to the rock wall which Sissy climbed and rapelled down four times. Because you know, there's nothing like the feeling of rapid descension on a full stomach. THEN they went to the big inflatable bouncy room where they spent some time jumping around, whipping those stomach contents up like a KitchenAid on 10. THEN on their way out they stopped at the motorized kiddie cars (the ones Peanut was too grown up for in my last post). There they gradually slowed the batter in the stomach to a milder stirring speed. It was on the way home that Sissy started feeling sick.

I guess periodic lapses in judgment are hereditary.

I wanted to grab my father by the shoulders and say, "Who are you and what have you done with the man who raised me? I know you're not him, because you're nothing like him. He knew the meaning of the word "No". In fact, he often followed the word "No" with the words "It'll give you a bellyache"."

Instead, I just said, "Do you think maybe all that motion might be what upset her stomach?"
He was gracious enough to allow room for that theory.

My Dad - most of the time, he's exactly what he appears to be... a mild-mannered 72 year-old man. But when he's with his granddaughters, he's a 9 year-old kid. Who has a license to drive. And money in his pocket.

So the cookies, the hat, and the trip to the mall were all a bust.

There was a bright side though. It would have been even worse if all that stuff had happened on Christmas Eve.